NOVOKUZNETSK, June 3. /TASS/. Coal companies for receiving targeted support should meet a number of criteria, with the level of proven loss, debt and EBITDA among them, Director of the Russian Energy Ministry’s Coal Industry Development Department Pyotr Bobylev.
"Those criteria (of individual support policies - TASS) are being discussed now. The Energy Ministry understands and it has always said that systemic policies are crucial as well. <…> This is why proven loss is the first criterion we see. Whereas the scale of loss is being discussed per tonne of production. Those are economic indicators such as debt/EBITDA and EBITDA," he told reporters.
At the end of May, following a meeting on the situation in the coal industry held by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the Energy Ministry and the Finance Ministry were instructed to develop and approve by June 5 the criteria, on the basis of which decisions would be made on consideration of state support applications submitted by coal companies.
It was noted that a targeted approach would be used when providing support measures to entities in the coal industry. For doing this a decision was made to set up a subcommittee to provide financial measures of state support to certain organizations in economic sectors, which will operate within the framework of the governmental commission on increasing the sustainability of the Russian economy amid sanctions at the platform of the finance ministry.